Chapter 6. Search

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Setting up Search Service

• Managing Search Service

• Scaling out the Search Service, which includes:

  • Adding a query component

  • Adding a property database

  • Adding a crawl database

• Adding a host distribution rule

• Viewing Search query/crawl reports

• Customizing the refinement menu

Introduction

The Search Service is part of the SharePoint 2010 services infrastructure. It is one of the service applications that can be shared by multiple farms. The advantage of this type of architecture is that farms do not have to configure their own search; they can subscribe to this service and can be managed at the enterprise level.

Search has been a component of SharePoint since its beginning and has evolved over time into a mature and complex product.

There are several editions of Search that an administrator should be aware of:

• Search Server Express 2010: This is a free product that enables users to find their content. It can search 10 million items in a fraction of a second, has the refinement panel, and contains connectors for federation and Windows file shares.

• SharePoint Search Server 2010: Bundled with Standard and Enterprise editions of SharePoint 2010, this component provides the search service for people and expertise, is integrated with My Site, and contains a phonetic...

Setting up Search Service

As Search Service is a part of the SharePoint 2010 services infrastructure, the setup is similar to other services. We have already gone through the setup of other services such as Excel, PerformancePoint, and the managed metadata service.

In this recipe, we will set up an instance of search through Central Administration.

Getting ready

You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site. Set up an Active directory account, sa_search. This account will be utilized to manage the Search Service.

How to do it...

1. 1. Open the Central Administration site and click Application Management.

2. 2. The third section is Service Applications. Under this section, click Manages service applications.

3. 3. On the ribbon, click New and Search Service Application.

4. 4. The following screenshot appears. Fill in the details.

   • Name: This is the name for the Search Service application.

   • FAST Service Application: Choose None as this book does not cover Fast Search...

Managing Search Service

Setting up the Search Service application may be a one time job, but managing the search is not. Getting good search results to the community is the job of a vigilant administrator. As we have seen in previous recipes, the Search Administrator does not have to be the same person as the Farm Administrator.

Obtaining good search results requires monitoring trends and ensuring that content is being crawled in a timely manner. Using this information, the administrator can make appropriate decisions on how to improve performance.

This recipe introduces us to the Search Administration screen, which is used to manage the Search Service.

Getting ready

There are two ways to manage the search service:

• You can have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site

• You can be assigned as an administrator of the Search Service application

How to do it...

1. 1. Open the Central Administration site and click Application Management.

2. 2. The third section is Service Applications...

Scaling out Search—adding a query component

The SharePoint 2010 query server accepts the query from an end user from the web front-end. It then reads the index file and servers the result back.

The index file is partitioned. As query servers are added, the partition is broken into multiple parts so that no single query server holds the entire index. The following screenshot is from the Managing Search Topology page:

It illustrates how the index partition and query server are tied to one another. The index partition is sent to the query server by the crawl component. As can be seen from the preceding screenshot, each partition must have an associated query server.

It enhances the performance of the topology. There is no longer one large index file that must be traversed every time a query is sent.

Getting ready

You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site. There must also be another server on which to host the query server.

How to do it...

1. 1. Open the Central...

Scaling out Search—adding a property database

As we saw in the previous recipe, the index partition is associated with a property database. As your site grows and the items in the index grow, metadata needs become a possible bottleneck.

This information is stored in the property database. If users are performing many metadata searches, then more property databases (either on the same or separate SQL Servers) may need to be added to relieve this congestion. This recipe shows how to achieve this.

Getting ready

You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site.

How to do it...

1. 1. Open the Central Administration and click Application Management.

2. 2. The third section is Service Applications. Under this section, click Manage service applications.

3. 3. Find the Search Service Application option and click on it (this is the name SharePoint assigns by default if not modified when creating the Search Service). The ribbon will light up. Click Manage.

4. 4. Under the Search...

Scaling out Search—adding a crawl database

The final component that can be scaled out with regards to search is crawler. In the topology search application page, it is broken into two items:

• Crawl Database

• Crawl Component

The Crawl Server comprises of the crawl component that is associated with a crawl database. Each crawl database has one or more crawl components (crawlers) to index its content. It is typically scaled out for redundancy purposes or to increase the speed of the crawl.

The crawler crawls the content sources and creates the index partition(s). Then it sends the created partition(s) to the query server(s). It does not hold the index partition. It writes details about the crawl into the crawl database. It is stateless in that it does not retain information itself.

Getting ready

You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site.

How to do it...

1. 1. Open the Central Administration site and click Application Management.

2. 2. The third section is Service...

Adding a host distribution rule

One of the configuration items that an administrator has more control over is the ability to dedicate a host address to a specific crawl database. A crawl database contains data related to the location of content sources and crawl schedules. It may be a benefit to the user base that certain content is indexed more frequently in order to be fresher.

This is done through host distribution rules. A database can be dedicated to a server (or host).

In this recipe, we will create a host distribution rule.

Getting ready

You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site.

There must be at least two crawl databases. Create the second crawl database as shown in the previous recipe, except checking of the box under Dedicate Database.

How to do it...

1. 1. Open Central Administration and click Application Management.

2. 2. The third section is Service Applications. Under this section, click Manage service applications.

3. 3. Find the Search Service...

Viewing Search Query/Crawl Reports

The preceding recipes have shown the scalability of the SharePoint Search infrastructure. Search topology is robust and flexible. As the needs of the organization grow, Search can scale.

The question becomes a matter of when, not if, Search must be scaled. It is also a question of where (which components) to scale Search.

The answers to these questions are found in the set of reports that ship with SharePoint 2010. There are two basic types of search administration reports:

• Reports that address query processing. These reports show the latency of the queries.

• Reports that show information about the crawler. These reports show processing in the queue, per component, per content source, and per type.

In this recipe, we will show how to view and find them.

Getting ready

You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site.

Your farm must be set up to crawl content and must have completed a full crawl. In addition, the site must...

Customizing the refinement menu

The SharePoint 2010 Search Center results page contains a new section called the refinement panel. This panel is located on the left portion of the screen and provides a summary of search results which, when used, act as filters on the returned data.

Out of the box, there are three main categories:

• Site

• Author

• Date

New custom refinement categories can be configured, these are based on managed properties. Managed properties are the metadata stored with items in SharePoint. There are many more properties than the three that are shown out of the box.

This recipe consists of two parts:

• Adding a managed property, which takes place in the Central Administration.

• Modifying the refinement menu to include a new category based on the managed property, which will be done at the site level.

Getting ready

Ensure that you are a Site Collection Administrator.

In the site, you are going to modify a custom list and create a new column called Finance, using the property named Single...